News

State workers' paychecks ensured -- for now

Posted August 10, 2007 11:00 pm

Adriana Colindres

State workers are assured of receiving their regular paychecks through the end of August, despite the fact that state government continues to operate without a budget.

Christian County Judge Ronald Spears entered a court order to that effect Friday after top state officials and the largest state employees' union told him they had reached a temporary agreement.

"We have taken care of the immediate crisis," said Henry Bayer, executive director of the union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

The deal involves AFSCME Council 31, Comptroller Dan Hynes and Attorney General Lisa Madigan. It came in response to a class-action lawsuit AFSCME filed Thursday on behalf of all state employees because of uncertainty over whether they would get paychecks on or after Aug. 15.

Hynes has said he doesn't believe he has the authority to issue payments to state workers and others without a state budget or a court order.

"It is good news for state employees," Hynes said of the agreement at a Statehouse news conference. "But my pleasure only goes so far because this is a limited, temporary order, and if we don't have action on this budget, if we don't have a signature on this budget, then we're going to be back to where we were a few days ago."

Lawmakers on Friday sent Gov. Rod Blagojevich a budget bill, but it isn't known whether he will sign it into law. State government's fiscal year started July 1, and a temporary budget that covered the month of July has expired.

Hynes said that while state workers will get paid through the end of August, hundreds of millions of dollars in other payments will not be issued this month, including school-aid payments.

That prompted House Republican Leader Tom Cross to suggest that school districts "may be in court next" to seek money the state owes them.

Ann Spillane, Madigan's chief of staff, said that without a new state budget or a court order, the comptroller's office would have missed the Aug. 15 payroll.

Missing the payroll would have meant violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which covers some state employees, she said.

By violating the act, the state would have had to pay damages on top of the employees' wages, Spillane said. That would be a "needless expense" for taxpayers, she said.

If the state still has no budget in place by the time the temporary agreement expires, another round in court is likely, said officials from AFSCME and the attorney general's office. At that point, their focus would be on the Fair Labor Standards Act, which state workers are covered by it and how much those workers must be paid under the act's provisions.

Randy Flood, a state employee from Springfield who attended Friday's court hearing in Taylorville, said he was pleased with the outcome.

"We all have debts," said Flood, a human services caseworker for the Department of Health and Family Services and president of AFSCME Local 2600. "We just want to make sure the state of Illinois recognizes we deserve to be paid for the jobs that we do."

AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said the union filed the class-action suit in Christian County because some of the suit's nine named plaintiffs live there and because AFSCME wanted a venue that could conduct a speedy emergency hearing.

Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or adriana.colindres@sj-r.com.

Article Categories
News